Days of A Living Earth
by Nisei
Summary: In the final days of the Golden Kingdom and the Silver Millennium, the two worlds were rife with misunderstandings and wrong decisions. As their planet fell into war, the Shitennou teetered between loyalty and betrayal with every choice they made.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer : I do not own Sailor Moon nor its characters and concepts. This piece is also a work of fiction, and does not reflect any actual events or real people.

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**Days of A Living Earth**

**----**

**1**

Walking into the royal scriptorium was like intruding into a secret world---a world long dead and stagnant but not rotting, with air filled with old age and sadness but not the melancholy often associated with dead secret worlds. The place was composed of hallways piling upon hallways, each leading into small rooms where the scribes used to do their work. It was easy to lose your way there, with all the unmarked corridors and archways, as well as the absence of life like all old abandoned places. Those who had once plied their trade and supplied the kingdom's libraries with books in the old days were long gone.

The scriptorium was not empty, however, of things that marked the passage of what came before. Old book-scribing tools were still lined neatly on the desks and shelves : colors, stones, rulers. The colors had long dried up, of course, except in the first rooms where everything was always reproduced in mint condition, and an employee of the crown occasionally demonstrates the act of scribing to the populace. Zoisite had seen it once, it was long, arduous, and probably painful to the neck. He remembered the day vividly because it was the day he also gained employ with the crown, himself. He was barely thirteen, and as soon as he had established friends in his new home and gathered up a bit of courage, they went off to explore the scriptorium. Back then it seemed dark and foreboding, unlike now, when it was familiar and more than a little sad. Printing presses had been invented centuries before his birth, thank Elysion for the inventor, and everything had been the better for it.

Still, as he walked in the empty scriptorium filled with abandoned tools and workbenches, Zoisite couldn't help but feel a lingering sense of loss. If he had been blessed (or cursed, as he sometimes debated with his fellow guardians) from the Earth as the Prince was, perhaps he could see visions here. With a touch, the old world might come alive before him, ghostly apparitions of what went here before. Perhaps a young scribe used to sit here, daydreaming of his love while working on a volume for some distant nation that had yet to join his own, before the world was Golden Kingdom. The young scribe would have his own habits. Perhaps he sighed intermittently, perhaps he went to lunch break five minutes earlier than everyone else, perhaps he was diligent and worked until the height of nighttime. And perhaps he did not do work at all sometimes, but simply debated the politics of the day with his fellow scribes, face stern or merry as the topic would have it. And whoever he was that Zoisite could not see, he was once here, he lived, he died, and no one save the Earth would remember him.

The thought made the young man somber, but it also cleared his mind. That was why he decided to come here at this hour, a late time where he could intrude on the past. He wanted to think, and not of today's clauses and today's thoughts, but something to stay his mind so it could rest. Zoisite found that he didn't want to think too much about what was going on, after all, even with that show in front of his peers about the importance of thoughtful analysis.

He chuckled. Didn't the Prince say that was one of his best traits---and worst, as Kunzite said---to get too involved in one moment, less so at others, and at times lose his own train of reason completely? He remembered how they said it. Both of them began with _You're good at this, Zoisite, but there's a reason you keep losing at chess._

Kunzite used the words _easily goaded._ Prince Endymion coined _involved in the moment_. At the time, he was fourteen, and while he bowed politely to His Highness, Zoisite remembered throwing Kunzite a raspberry when he thought he wasn't being seen (which he was). He remembered liking his liege much more than his lord commander in those days, considering how the Prince was only a few years older than him and prone to smiles, while Kunzite was a few years older than the Prince and was all business. Of course, he actually grew to realize that Kunzite was actually making a very comical face in that chess match, it was only his problem for failing to decipher it.

Thoughts of the days before made him somber again. The young man quickened his pace. He wanted to be there, in his favourite room, before the moon was out. As far as current events were concerned, the moon gave him practically no reason to love it. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more Zoisite realized his hard-earned calm was starting to slip.

What did the transmissions from the moon say?

They weren't the moon princess' guardians. Those he'd seen around a few times, coming to drag their princess back from her 'unthinking excursions', of which Zoisite also accused the Prince with, if only in jest. He didn't know them well except for the similarities of their duties, but they didn't make him think ill of the moon folks, either. Zoisite was a bit different from the city-born nobles obsessed with living that he would envy the moon people of their long lives, and he'd always viewed the tension with a certain amusement, if only because it made Kunzite and Jadeite all dead serious when the topic was brought up.

That changed today.

What did the transmissions from the moon say?

It was like a slap in the face. The voices, with their knowing whispers and giggles, asked them to _Make your prince stop leading our Princess astray._

Zoisite had wanted to scream then, and he was thankful that Endymion was on a state meeting elsewhere with Kunzite and Nephrite as his guards, leaving him and Jadeite alone to face this travesty. Almost as soon as the royal entourage left and his control room left only with a skeleton crew, the messages came. They ended before anyone could trace it, and left no chance for reply. He could still remember the inflections in the voices clearly, the Moon accent of Earthian language.

He flung open doors after doors in the abandoned scriptorium, a place built millennia before his time. The ghosts of the past helped to calm this anger, but they weren't enough. Not yet. Zoisite could still recall the look on Jadeite's face as he said, calmly, that there was no evidence the messages were actually sent from the moon and this could have been a farce for all they knew. He knew Jadeite realized there was no way of proving one way or the other. Princess Serenity would never know, and they couldn't formally ask of the moon without forever ruining relations. As if the moon couldn't be wary of them enough.

Wasn't it already enough that the moon was watching their every moment, waiting for the exact day they'd do something stupid so they could pull out their precious Ginzuishou and purify them?

Finally, after many doors had been unceremoniously thrown open, the young man finally reached a set of double doors. They were one of the most exquisitely decorated doors in the scriptorium itself, with carvings of the golden ages, shining castles and crystals and beyond all the Elysion fields. The paint was still intact and beautiful, having been preserved there by powers greater than the ravages of time. Zoisite opened this door, too, but with more reverence than he did the other doors. He felt his heartbeat calming, just a little bit.

The room was still kept in excellent condition, although the rows upon rows of bookshelves that must have stood here were long gone, turned over to some library. The royal university, perhaps. Most of the furniture also went the same way, making the room perhaps the only one that was truly bare of signs, but there were other things here, too, other things that set this room apart. In the corner of the room was a once-cheery fireplace the size of which could fit three men into, and on the mantle, the crest of Golden Kingdom still glowed in ancient fire far older than the wood that once burned there. It was inscribed there with power older than time, too, and while nobody wanted to bother with the effort of moving the seal elsewhere, destroying it otherwise was also unthinkable. High above him, on the domed ceiling, was a skylight covered in stained glass, splitting the starlight into a dozen colors, each promising a perfect world.

This used to be the central hall where books were kept and administration of the scriptorium was done. Zoisite imagined this room was once busy with scribes running back and forth, but now it was empty, and it gave him opportunity to put things in perspective. More than anything else, it gave him a chance to calm down and put a mask on his emotions, something Jadeite kept saying he was terrible at.

He found a good spot where he could observe the changing colors of the skylight and lay down on his back, his eyes on the ceiling. The stained glass was painted in form of a wild herd, horses galloping in a verdant meadow. And yet the old masters managed to paint in them so many colors and so many hues that the horses, the meadow and the stars seemed to come alive. It was something modern holograms couldn't do, like the ones standing in the palace's throne room. And there was something beautiful in the fact that they were here, forgotten by nearly everyone for centuries. The crumbling skeleton of a long dead secret world.

Zoisite didn't know how long he'd lain there when he heard a noise. It came in the form of familiar footsteps, a man walking at a slow pace, and stopped at the open doors of his stained-glass chamber. He didn't even have to look to know who it was. "Kunzite. I thought you're all due to come back tomorrow morning."

His commander sighed before walking in and sitting down next to him. "We've had a sudden change of plans," he said, his voice grave, "there were more dissidents. The final stage of the visit had to be cancelled, but at least he's done with the conference."

The youngest royal guardian of the Earth flicked a glance at the oldest, then turned his gaze back to the skylights. "How is he doing?"

"Master's fine," Kunzite answered, and then amended, "or as fine as he can be, considering the circumstances. Some of them were...at least there's no terrorists."

Zoisite gritted his teeth, trying to swallow the killing anger boiling from inside him. "I wish we know who's the little tattletale feeding the public with stories of our prince and the princess. There are a number of things I'd like to ask him---or her."

"So do I. There's either someone who gains from discrediting the prince, someone who gains from rallying the old 'moon sympathizer' prejudices no matter at what cost, or someone who's desperate for quick, dirty money. And I don't like the looks of it," Kunzite said, sighing again. He was deeply troubled. They all were. The older man shifted his weight. "I know why you're here, too, Zoisite."

Zoisite closed his eyes. "Jadeite told you." It wasn't a question. Of course Jadeite would tell, and of course Kunzite would be the one to figure out where he went in one of his mood trips. Kunzite was annoying that way.

"I haven't told the Prince. Jadeite thought you'd go into hermit mode again and had an excuse ready by the time we got back," Kunzite said. From his voice, the younger man knew that a little smile was playing on his lips. "Haven't really grown up that much, have we?"

"Don't say such things, Kunzite. You talking like a wise old sage give me the creeps," he snorted. "Anyway, I'm still just sixteen. It's healthy to have mood swings at my age, and Jadeite could handle anything short of a full-scale crisis, anyway."

"He can. He's also asking me for a bonus paycheck for his work today. As if I'm in any position for that," the other man replied, mirth still in his voice. It was abruptly gone in the next sentence. "What do you think about the transmission?"

Zoisite sat up, now looking at his superior in the face. "What do I think about the transmission?"

Kunzite frowned in return. "You know what I mean. Do you think it's really from the moon, or from a dissident group trying to cause a diplomatic upheaval?"

"I don't know, don't ask me. Jadeite should tell you there's insufficient evidence for either. Either way we know what it means. Someone's not happy with the Prince, and I really want to meet that someone face to face, too."

"Zoisite."

"What?" he asked irritably.

Their commander was staring straight away into the darkness, intently enough to kill, if eyes were lasers. "Master's going to Elysion tomorrow. You're going with him."

Zoisite blinked. He almost stood up. "Master's _what_? And why me? You're always the one who goes with the Prince, you're captain of the guard." The young man realized his voice was rising with each word, even if it was more out of surprise than anger.

Kunzite turned to him, and his eyes softened. "You said it yourself. Someone's not happy with the Prince. I have the most contacts here, and I intend to find out. But he's going to Elysion and someone has to guard him, even if the place's peaceful enough...no one knows what's going to happen."

The young man frowned. "What happened during the trip, Kunzite?"

He shook his head. "Dissidents, like I said. The area used to be peaceful and there were no problems with the central government as far as we're concerned, but recently..." Kunzite's hands balled into fists. "Recently there's been...rising discontentment. Apparently it's about the moon. The rim, I've told you before, dislikes the moon a great deal. And the press releases about Master's relationship with the princess transferred that dislike to him. They threw things. They shouted. And these were the same people who waved him on and did nothing but love him a year ago.

"You can say it's going to earn me a bonus, but I preferred the old days," Kunzite turned to him, smiling weakly. "And if we're going to find the cause of this recent turn of things we're going to need a cooler head than yours, sadly."

"Hey."

"Not only that, the Prince wants to go to Elysion to see the dreams of the people. He wants to get in a bit of communion with the planet, you can say that," the older man continued, heedless of the disruption, "if something's influencing Earth, he wants to know. And besides, that place is the best you can think of for a little vacation." Kunzite smiled. "I think he needs a bit of it."

Zoisite could feel his heart squeezing itself dry when thinking about the issues facing his master right now. "With His Majesty being so bedridden..."

"We've been without a vessel for the Golden Crystal for generations. No doubt he feels stressed," Kunzite said. "You're to go with him and make sure he's all right, no overworking, no overthinking. You're younger than him, Zoisite, I'm sure your presence would provide some sort of distraction. And you can analyze well, so you'll be an asset to Master in sifting through all those dreams."

"You've got it all figured out, didn't you?" Zoisite said, with a hint of amusement that soon turned to seriousness. "But what about over here? How are you going to divide the teams?" He usually went with Kunzite on assignments, based on seniority. By putting the youngest member with the oldest, they made sure their decisions and opinions balanced themselves out. And admittedly, Kunzite was easier to talk to than Jadeite or Nephrite, at times.

"I'm going to investigate with Nephrite as soon as we have any leads. Jadeite will hold things together at home," Kunzite answered. His lack of hesitation showed that he'd already thought it over in his head.

Zoisite wasn't satisfied, though. "Just Jadeite? He'd be fine for a day or two, I guess, but what if your investigation runs long? Jadeite's a bit impatient, even with all his planning and analysis."

The silver-haired man smiled. "Don't worry. He'll be accompanied by Lady Beryl. Do you know her?"

"Master's childhood friend? The one from House Heliodis?" Zoisite frowned. "I can't say I know her, but I've seen her around. Very ladylike, very long hair, works in divination?"

"You're correct," Kunzite said, getting back on his feet and signaling the end of the conversation. "With her skills and Jadeite's judgement, I'm sure they'll do fine. And she should be the last person to betray Master, if what His Majesty said of their relationship was right. We've just got to hold all this together."

Zoisite got on his feet as well, knowing that Kunzite did not like it when any of them shows slothful habit. "One more question, Kunzite?"

"Yes?"

He gathered up a bit of courage. The question was hard, but in times like this, it needed to asked---he _had_ to be sure. "What do you think about the moon?"

Kunzite turned, then gave him a smile full of irony. His earrings glittered in the multicolored light, brighter now that the moon was quite high in the sky.

"Now that's the question, isn't it?"

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To be continued.


	2. Chapter 2

**Days of A Living Earth**

**----**

**2**

Jadeite stood before a row of monitors, blinking with rapidly changing status messages and diagrams. A few researchers were looking at him worriedly. Whether they worried for him, for the project or for their own necks, he didn't know. He knew the diagrams, however. Not being a specialist in the field didn't mean Jadeite couldn't read a few things from the signs.

He pointed to one monitor. "That one, Fei. Can you bring up a status report on number 46?"

Fei immediately scrambled to the keyboard to do his bidding, pushing the responsible technician out of the way. Four monitors flickered out, and in their place of their display was a large, zoomed report on number 46. He stepped away from the keyboard, then, with an apologetic bow to the stationed tech.

The display featured three columns of life support data, a graph on vital signs, and rows upon rows of numbers that Jadeite did not care to interpret. He concentrated his efforts on the columns and to a lesser extent the graphs, comparing them with others he'd seen before. The numbers on the columns were already digested and presented in a more easily understood manner, and it showed him several things of interest. One, there had been a noticeable raise in negative energy from the subjects and two, their body chemicals were all produced in the wrong amounts. Hormones controlling aggression and were high in one or two subjects. Others, while sharing similar symptoms, showed very low blood sugar levels while their brain activity peaked. He didn't know how they could've---or why they should---have these symptoms while being under coma for weeks.

He tapped one index finger on the desk he was leaning on. "Number 52 next, please."

The screen immediately switched as his 'laboratory tour guide' rushed to another keyboard. The displays in front of him vanished, went back to their usual status messages, and another four screens went blank and reappeared with the little details for the subject he asked for. Number 52's figures followed the trend, save for a lower blood pressure which might be due to his old age. Jadeite frowned. He turned. "May I see the subjects in person?"

Fei looked flabbergasted. "But, sir, the clean room is---it's---"

"We have no time, doctor," Jadeite cut in, making sure that he looked at his most authoritative. He wasn't a Kunzite, but he could try. "Show me to the clean room. I know the procedures."

He didn't seem happy but still complied, running to fetch the appropriate protective clothing.

Jadeite looked after him. He didn't doubt that the researcher felt awkward and discomfited by his presence. He was younger than most of them, after all. The center had made sure that the person to show him the facilities was their youngest, and even then, Fei had to have been at least six years older than him. Having an inspection officer that much younger than you couldn't have been very comfortable. At least if he was Zoisite, he could've provided some light banter to make the man less ill at ease. But he was Jadeite, and the last time Jadeite tried to joke, he managed to put his subordinates into a depression for days. The young man would rather not have that happen again.

Still, with Zoisite gone, he was the only option left for any excursions to follow. Nephrite would not want to stand around looking at screens and Kunzite needed someone with him, not to mention that Nephrite would have given the scientists here a headache anyway. The man just simply couldn't live for a day without making snide comments at something.

Around twenty minutes later, Fei finally returned with two sets of protective clothing. Jadeite thanked him, and after struggling a bit to get into a suit a size smaller than him, he was led down a circular walkway that looked almost like a tube. The sphincter door whooshed shut behind him, shutting out any contaminating factors, and the ventilators began to churn. Light-crystals started to glow dimly as the system acknowledged their presence.

Somewhere in Jadeite's mind, _This is why I hate hospitals_ could be heard. He was briefed before on how the patients of this particular disease needed to be kept in darkness, but he still didn't have to like how the hallways had been turned into a cavern.

Fei finally managed to lead them to a door, which he opened with a few whispered words in the lockpad beside the doorframe. Jadeite took a deep breath before following his guide in.

The sight before him was unnerving, even though he knew what to expect. He had, after all, been at Prince Endymion's side when he visited His Majesty's sanctum. But that being the palace and private sanctuary of the Kingdom's ruler made it very different from _this._

Rows upon rows of people slept on slabs of granite, with no motion except a faint stirring of their abdomens to show they were even alive. Their faces were generally pale, almost to the point of blue, yet some were dark. Almost as if something in their flesh had hardened to the point that biological colors couldn't possibly survive. There was a diverse range of sleepers, from young to old, strong workers to pregnant women. He'd like to find a pattern, as that was often the first indication of what went wrong and how to prevent it, but there seemed to be nothing of that kind here. The affected group was simply too diverse.

Jadeite shot a glance at Fei, who nodded in permission. He began walking between the slabs, examining each subject for anything he might have missed. Seeing them like this reminded him of why the center refused to call them _patients_ but instead used _subjects._ There didn't seem to be any hope. Everyone was breathing and their hearts were beating, but that was all they did. From the reports, it was as if almost everything else in their bodies just suddenly stopped except the barebones of what they needed to live. He noticed a few seemed to be getting thin, and asked Fei about it.

"Their bodies don't accept injections. We let a sustainer come in here every once in a while, and he does the purifying work. That seemed to work better," was the older man's reply, and Jadeite nodded. That would be consistent with what had been happening behind closed doors everywhere else, to people who could afford closed doors.

The young man went through the remaining rows. He noticed a few had discolorations on fingernails, too, and in one case the teeth for a hare-lipped man, and made a mental note to include it in his debriefing report. Then there was nothing more to see, and he motioned for Fei to take him back outside, back to a world with comfortable light and air that didn't need recycling.

On their journey back, he asked Fei a question, "What do you think is the cause of all this?"

Fei shot him a glance over his shoulders. "I'll be glad to know that, too. If we do, we would've been able to do something about it."

"They respond better to sustainers than food when their bodies' main biological concern should be food, doctor," Jadeite said, "surely you don't think that's normal."

The researcher stopped in his tracks. "What do you mean?" he asked, voice openly curious, and in other ways, full of dread.

Jadeite held both his hands in front of him, then gave the older man a smile when he appeared shocked, just to show that he had no intention of violating the center's rules. "The healers are more or less like me, in a way. The planet gave us gifts, but we're not the one chosen to bear its name." Yes, that would be the Prince. The planet had a strange obsession with choosing people from the royal family.

"And? These people don't have the seeds," Fei's voice was trembling a bit, even though he probably knew his next words anyway. It had to have occurred to someone, in a center this size.

He let both his hands dropped and said, in a sterner voice, "They don't have them. Sustainers can help them. The Golden Crystal does nothing for them. There is something here, doctor, something connected." Jadeite looked upward, at the old, old light crystals above. They shone golden, too. "I'd suggest you borrow a few specialists from the other departments, that is if you haven't done so already. Have you?"

The answer was exactly what he predicted. Fei nodded mutely, and added that they had "also contacted the department of divination and astronomy. We've been wanting to contact the royal court, too, but how could we dare with His Highness being so busy?"

Jadeite nodded as well. "He is busy, that's correct. And I assure you that the royal court does everything it can." What with the King being sick with the same disease as well, not that they could ever let the public know. "We'll let you know if our work proves fruitful."

They were nearing the exit, and as Jadeite made toward the door, the researcher stopped him with a raised hand. "Sir. Can I ask you one question before you go?"

Jadeite looked at him. "Yes, doctor?"

Fei's eyes grew wider as words tumbled out of his mouth. "Do you think---do you think, somehow, this disease. It's not normal. It's connected to the seeds of stars. It's---at this point, you know the rumors. Do you think it could have been..."

His voice trailed off, but the younger man had little difficulty guessing what Fei was trying to say. He smiled.

"Don't be silly, doctor. They're too busy trying to purify us than to make us sick, remember?"

"They could've used this opportunity to tell us we need them..."

Jadeite waved at him dismissively. "Of course we haven't let go of that possibility yet, but think about it, Doctor Fei. Silver Millennium valued its reputation far too much for this. And at this time, it's more likely to be the work of instigators." He smiled again. "And for the record, we'll forget this conversation ever took place. Shall we?"

The doctor didn't argue.

By the time Jadeite took proper leave of the facilities, he was tired in many definitions of the word, and he drifted in and out of sleep all the way back to the palace. He was tired. Thoughts of his debriefing report and what had to go into them popped in his head during the intervals between slumber and wakefulness. Yes, he should report Fei, for that last conversation. The Moon Conspiracy Theory was ridiculous. But the desperation in the man's eyes...he didn't mean to go against the policies, he didn't mean to provoke hatred...he was just desperate. Desperate. He worked with those almost lifeless people everyday and yes, he was just desperate. And his choices were running low, that was all it was. If he wasn't, there was no way he would've broached such a subject with an inspector, he had to be desperate. They had to be.

Jadeite groaned, and keyed a few instructions into his transport to give him a wake-up call when they finally reached the palace.

He was woken up a short time later. Not by the transport's system, but by a series of beeping from his own communicator. Muttering a few choice swear words for waking him up, Jadeite flipped the device open and stared darkly as the face that appeared on it.

"Nephrite. I should've guessed. Did it occur to you that I didn't sleep at all last night?"

His coworker's voice on the other end cracked with static. "No, I don't think you're that popular---or enduring. Actually," quickly amended as he sensed the rising anger in the Jadeite Death Glare, "I'm just calling you because Zoisite just dropped a message to the command center from Elysion. He's all antsy that you're not here for the day."

Jadeite groaned again. "I've been scheduled for this inspection run since forever, what did he expect? Anyway, I didn't think you and Kunzite are actually leaving today, so better today than tomorrow. What did Zoisite want?"

"Oh, you've been on an inspection run? That explains the dark eyes. I've heard it's not very pretty," Nephrite's voice maintained its cheery tone as he answered, "as for Zoisite...how should I know? He left a message for you, locked it to your codes, everything. Something about what he was working on before Kunzite surprise-dropped him to Elysion with Master---"

He could hear Kunzite's "I heard that," on the line, but Nephrite continued as if nobody ever said anything.

"He said Master didn't know how long they'd take, so better leave something like that with you, maybe it'd be of some use. Just make sure you check your space today."

"I'll do that," Jadeite replied tiredly. "Nephrite, can I talk to the commander a bit?" His use of the title meant yes, for all the brunettes who didn't have a clue, they were still in office hours, dammit.

"Kunzite? What for?"

"Well, two things. When are you leaving?"

"We're leaving this evening, right after you come back. Wouldn't make sense to leave the palace without at least one of us here," Nephrite said, then snapped his fingers like he just remembered something. "Oh yeah, Jadeite, I have news for you, too. You want to ask the second thing first or do you want the news first?"

"...news first, thanks. Is this going to be bad?"

Nephrite grinned on the blurry screen. He was passing through an interference-heavy area, apparently. "Someone's going to stand in for Zoisite until he gets back, and she's pretty," said the brunette conspiratorially, "rich, noble lady, too."

Jadeite rubbed his temples and swore patience to the powers that be. "I don't want games, Nephrite, not now. I have a splitting headache bigger than the East Sea Trench. Who?"

"Lady Beryl."

"Lady Beryl?" he asked, trying to conjure up the face. Long black hair, wavy, brown eyes? Or green? Remembering faces was not his forte. Equations or battle tactics, sure, faces, no. He could almost count on his fingers the faces that he found memorable.

"You'll meet her tomorrow, I guess. Kunzite's been waiting to tell you along with all the other boring details, but you weren't in. Not excited?"

"Not really." The grassy parks and white pillars sped past him by, Jadeite could see the palace at the horizon. Whoever she was, he hoped she was competent. "Can I ask my second question?"

"Sure."

"How long are all of you going away? I've got something Master might be interested in hearing."

He could hear what might pass for a sigh coming through the communicator, and Nephrite seemed to be making a corresponding motion. "I don't know. Zoisite, well, he probably wouldn't let the Prince stay there longer than two weeks, and I don't recommend you bother him with anything while he's there..."

"Point taken. You?"

"Kunzite and I...well, we have a lot to work on. Starting from the rim, actually, and we'll look into the disease as well as the dissidents. Primarily the dissidents, but hey, whatever we could do. I have no idea."

Jadeite leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling while his communicator chirped something unintelligible at him, thanks to the distance.

None of them was going to have a restful night anytime soon.

-------------------

To be continued.

- You might have noted the change from "Prologue" to "1" in the first chapter, if you've been reading this story before. I've redecided that it fits the general flow better this way. Why yes I have little planning

- East Sea Trench refers to the Mariana Trench, assuming that the world only did a re-evolution and it's already past the Pangaea stage, which would've made the Shitennou's 'specialty area' concept being somewhat problematic.


End file.
